Tag Archives: copyright

Talia Lavin’s cri de coeur

Posted on November 16, 2023 by Robert Basil

I admire the writing of Talia Lavin. Her beautifully written Substack blog, “The Sword and the Sandwich,” always charms me. This week she published “Fuck You and Your Word-Stealing Machine: A Luddite stands against AI language models and their plunder.” … Continue reading →

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Copyright laws have always been a real bear

Posted on May 27, 2023 by Robert Basil

Ted Goia’s Substack newsletter is enlightening – with truly startling frequency – about things I probably should have known about already. From yesterday’s post: The most extreme case of music copyright comes from Elizabethan England. Here the Queen gave William … Continue reading →

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“Overlords at the Easel”

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Robert Basil

The brilliant, prolific, and combative political cartoonist Ted Rall has been spreading warnings about the ways AI can and will rob artists of rights to – and earnings from – their work. This week: As a cartoonist of the early … Continue reading →

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Free at Last

Posted on January 2, 2019 by Robert Basil

United States copyright law was changed repeatedly in the last century to grant copyright extensions to entire classes of works of literature and entertainment. This meant that such work could not be referenced at length in works of scholarship without … Continue reading →

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Photogrammar: An historical treasure trove

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Robert Basil

This photograph, shot in April 1943 by Marjorie Collins, is part of a delightful & important project in which more than 100,000 images – taken from 1935-1944 by photographers working the Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information – … Continue reading →

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Free textbooks and other resources for students and educators

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Robert Basil

Students who suffer under the burden of high tuition and large student loans need all the financial help the world can provide them. For my upper-level communications classes the last couple of years I have been using an excellent online … Continue reading →

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Copyright protections trump oil pipeline

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Robert Basil

Cantech News explains an Alberta land-owner’s ingenious use of copyright law: Alberta artist Peter van Tiesenhausen has provided an interesting legal precedent in his long-running battle with oil companies seeking to run a pipeline through his 800 acre territory. He … Continue reading →

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Copyright protections trump new TV-streaming technology

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Robert Basil

This is good news, from my publisher’s point of view. From The Globe and Mail: Canadian content producers are breathing a sigh of relief after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that online streaming service Aereo Inc. violates U.S. copyright laws, … Continue reading →

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New $ for Visual Artists?

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Robert Basil

The United States Copyright Office has recommended to the U.S. Congress that it reconsider its copyright laws so that visual artists can benefit from the resale of their work. Visual artists typically do not share in the long-term financial success … Continue reading →

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